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Thai Farmers' Protests
Win Debt Relief

By

Suttinee Yuvejwattana

Updated March 31, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Protests by thousands of Thai farmers who surrounded the headquarters of various banks this week have persuaded bankers to cut their losses and agree to the sale of the farmers' loans at 50% of principal to a state debt-bailout fund.

Initial agreements last year between the banks, the Network of Indebted Farmers and the Farmers Rehabilitation & Development Fund had applied the 50% cut only to the principal on loans of less than one million baht, or about $26,000, but the new agreement expands the reduction...